


Yondu Claus

by danvssomethingorother



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: F/M, For the 12 days of Stamora, Other, Yondu may be dead but his crap is still here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 18:19:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12940998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danvssomethingorother/pseuds/danvssomethingorother
Summary: While cleaning out the Quadrant, Peter finds a box filled with his old letters to Santa.





	Yondu Claus

Hoarding was a nasty habit and it usually carried from ravager to ravager, it was their own little tradition. Ravagers only became what they were after a hard life of nothing, so it was no surprise hoarding became a nasty habit and it was hard, so hard to break.

Kraglin and Peter had been banned from cleaning together on this mission to make the Quadrant more livable for the seven of them. The last time they had worked together they had deemed every item they found in the cargo that had already been caving in with the garbage from ravagers that were dead and unable to use them, necessary and vital for the ship. They had even managed to get more shit in the already over packed cargo by transferring all the junk deemed garbage by the other guardians down there. They had reasoned if it was all in one place, it was out of the way but the others were less willing to accept that. They had jobs to do, they would need the cargo area one day, the shit with no use needed to go.

Both of them had been assigned chaperones while they cleaned and neither were happy to be treated like children.

Peter considered he got lucky though, sitting on the floor with Gamora over seeing him as he dug through a crate that had once belonged to Yondu opposed to his older brother who likely had a gun inches from his head while he argued with Rocket about why he should be able to keep this box.

“I know I’m not making this easy,” he finally said facing Gamora taking his attention off the box for a moment, “But its just…hard.”

Gamora sighed and squatted down on the floor next to him and nodded placing her hand on his shoulder and squeezing it. She didn’t say anything and she didn’t need to, this was hard and they all knew it. Junking shit that belonged to dead people just didn’t feel right even if they had never personally known any of the ravagers that stashed their garbage in the third quadrant to keep anyone else from stealing their hoard. 

Looking at this garbage brought to mind his old home back on Earth and all his mother’s Earthly belongings. Her records, her tapes, that guitar she had tried to learn to play, that big basket of knitting supplies she inherited from her own mother, all long gone by now. All of it probably destroyed years ago, leaving nothing left of her on Earth. The only proof Peter would have to prove she was once here and had loved him had been destroyed by his own father, leaving nothing to remember her by. He took a large breath and Gamora helped steady him squeezing his shoulder tighter as he slid a crate close to him that had belonged to his adopted father.

He pulled a large, hole ridden sock that smelled like it was fresh off Yondu after he wore it for a month and groaned tossing it into the garbage pile. It was a little easier doing this without Kraglin at his side sliding rose colored glasses over his eyes painting a different picture of the past and convincing him they couldn’t get rid of that! It may look like garbage, but it has history.

Peter could tell you whatever history that nasty sock had and the equally as nasty underwear he pulled out after, he didn’t want to know and could just go without the smell.

Gamora smiled patting his arm and settling next to him to get a better view of the rest of the box with him.

“I know Yondu probably didn’t use half this shit after just tossing it in here neither did Tulk or Horuz or any of the other half a dozen men who hid their shit in here, but it still feels weird to have to get rid of their things. The things that proved they were here, that they were alive and lived on this ship longer then I have even been alive. Tossing the garbage should be easy but its not and I hope Rocket isn’t being too hard on Kraglin, he’s taking it way harder then I am.” 

“I think Rocket understands,” Gamora said simply touching the box silently asking permission to dig into it as well.

Peter nodded before speaking a little more of what was on his mind.

“I know. Rocket understands. Maybe even better then me….I wasn’t there for most of their deaths and caused Yondu’s.”

Gamora straightened and simply wrapped her arms around Peter’s waist and tilting her head firmly towards the box. Work through your pain, you will feel better soon and I love you that look told him firmly. Peter smiled, she understood what he needed.

“Ego killed Yondu and I will keep saying it till you believe it,” she said after a moment turning his head towards hers for a moment, “He killed your mother. You are no more at fault then I am. Being born is no more your fault then my own. We are what we are and we clean up the messes the monsters in our lives make.”

“First we clean out the garbage then we kill Thanos?” he asked smiling as her fingers gently swiped his tears back.

“Naturally, if you want to get more fame for killing another tyrant, you better get working on sorting that box.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he mock saluted tossing another crusted and aged sock into the garbage pile.

In truth, Peter didn’t really know who Yondu was in life, neither had ever attempted to get a deep meaningful understanding of the other. Going through this garbage he had hoped to get to know the people who helped define him through what they left behind but so far he found most of it was meaningless garbage they were just trying to hide from the other crew members. Nothing they needed, nothing they really wanted, but god damn did they not want to part with it.

Quill wasn’t ready to tell Gamora but when he was younger he spent a lot of time here in this quadrant surrounded by this junk feeling he meant as much. Not useful, not loved, not wanted but kept around just in case. The part of his brain that was trained to feel and think that also kept it open that his friends felt that way about him too and being down here surrounded by all this junk that they were slowly but surely tossing into the trash made those unwanted thoughts break into his conscious mind.

There is only so much use you can get out of a novelty Terran who’s vocabulary mainly consisted of out dated pop culture references before you got bored and discarded it after all. 

“Who is ‘Santa’?”

Peter jerked his head towards Gamora who had begun digging in the box again while he took a small reprieve into his own self-pity. He didn’t answer her right away, furrowing his brows and taking the old note book page that was folded into a make shift envelope, yellowing around the edges from age but his scratchy hand-written word was readable still even after all this time. He choked on his own laugh taken by such surprise seeing it. He always assumed these notes would be lost to time but no, Yondu had found each and every one he realized digging further into the box and finding more pages like the one in his hand.

“Fuck,” he whispered shaking his head, “I thought these damn things were destroyed. I guess it makes sense Yondu found all my notes and hid them away before the rest of the crew could make fun of me. Damn hoarder, only he would keep this shit.”

“Who were they for? A relative of yours?” Gamora asked taking one of the notes from the crate that had been hidden under a large pile of dirty laundry.

“No,” he said beginning to turn red as he turned his head away, “Its going to sound really stupid. Probably even insane considering you barely know what Christmas is…”

“A religion?” she inquired and Peter chuckled shaking his head, turning the letter over in his hands not really wanting to open it yet.

“Kinda. I mean there is the Christ stuff but mom, she didn’t believe in god…” he sighed flicking the tiny folded letter back into box and staring off. She had a right to, but sadly she did give her devotion to a god and he destroyed her.

“It’s a Terran holiday. A gift giving holiday about peace and love and family and friends and all that good stuff. Santa was this dude who loved everyone and if you were good enough, he would give you gifts…”

Gamora sneered at that and shook her head.

“He must not have loved everyone equally if you have to be deemed worthy for him to give you gifts.”

“He wasn’t real,” Peter laughed, “I think he only existed to sell Coke products and for parents to instill fear into their kids about being nice or Santa won’t get you the toy you wanted.”

Peter fell into silence after that, just staring sadly at the dozens of letters because for him, so long ago, Santa was real. He was a kid with a dying mother, he was an orphan abducted by aliens and he needed desperately to believe in something. People around him in the hospital told him to pray, his mother sneered to his grandfather god didn’t exist and she didn’t want to see his bible again but she always softly assured him Santa was there and he was always watching and knew he was good. So Santa became a cathartic concept to vent his problems to in letters for years. Sticking those letters begging for help into mail boxes on Earth and sticking them into cargo crates on the Eclector. Maybe he always knew no one was going to help him and when he ran out of paper in his note book he stopped writing but they helped him have just enough hope to make it through that first year so he never complained. In hindsight it was obvious Yondu would find them. 

“Then why did you write to him so much?” Gamora asked picking up one of the letters and flipping it between her fingers.

“He was a magical being who people told me knew everything,” he said turning his smuggest smile Gamora’s way but she didn’t by it for a second, she saw the sadness and pulled him close to her as he talked. Head resting on his broad shoulder and hand rested in his hair.

“I was eight, stupid, scared and didn’t know what I wanted, I just knew I didn’t want to be here.”

“May I read one?” she asked kissing Peter on the cheek before pulling away from him to get a better look at the folded notes on the bottom of the crate, mixing them around to grab one at random.

Peter nodded but inside his guts were twisting up into tight knots, he eyed the letter she began to unfold and wanted nothing more then to knock it from her hands.

“Dear Santa,

It’s me, Peter again, I know I keep writing to you and I’m not sure I have been good enough for you to grant me this big of a favor but can you please take me home or at least let me live in the North Pole with you? I could be an elf. I could be whatever ya wanted me to be. Please just help. Please. Last night one of the big aliens hit me and I have been in the vents for hours waiting for them all to go to bed. It hurts and I’m scared. I’m not even sure what I did wrong this time. I am trying so hard but he hates me so much. It’s like he just has fun pushing me around and I know no one cares enough about me to help. Please…I promise I will make it up however ya want. Just take me away from here.

Love, Peter Jason Quill.”

Peter remembered this letter and groaned to himself. One of the larger recruits like smacking him around when no one was looking and he was scared but didn’t want to go to Yondu fearing he would harm him for coming to him with useless problems. Again. He always shoved Peter away when he came to him afraid, so Peter hadn’t really trusted him to solve this problem and knew he couldn’t. So instead he made up a fantasy that someone could, if he was good enough and asked nice enough. He groaned and rolled his eyes at his own stupidity. He really was a brain dead child.

Peter was surprised when Gamora kept going.

“I may not be Santa but I took care of it. No need to be an elf, yer good enough where you are.”

Peter grabbed the letter from Gamora and looked at the sloppy hand writing underneath his own and stared in awe. Yondu had gotten rid of that guy, taking him out on a private mission he never came back from he remembered.

“Do you want to read the rest of them?” Gamora asked.

“No,” Peter whispered pocketing the letter, “This one is good.”

Gamora smiled at him and pulled him into a hug before declaring it was time for a break. Once Peter was half way across the room, she picked the box off the ground. Peter could read them whenever he was ready to see how much his adopted father did love him.


End file.
